LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KATV) — Educators and parents are reacting to proposed changes to Arkansas’ faculty voucher program, generally known as the Educational Freedom Accounts, as lawmakers look to tremendous tune the Arkansas LEARNS Act. The Arkansas Department of Education started accepting public written feedback about these potential changes on Tuesday, December 2nd.
Channel 7 News made a FOIA request to entry these public feedback. One proposed change appeared to spark essentially the most concern from the general public, and that’s the proposal to ban the Educational Freedom Accounts’ use for athletics for homeschoolers.
Parents like Raegon Barnes and Paul Bradley made public feedback, saying they’re involved about the way forward for this program.
“They’re wanting to take away 100% of the homeschool allocation for sports and physical activities, and it seems ridiculous,” says Barnes.
“What caught my eye was the proposed rule-changes potentially having a negative experience on my kids,” states Bradley.
Bradley explains that these changes would affect how a lot homeschool households must pay out of pocket in the event that they register their kids in athletics.
“My understanding was the proposed rule changes would effectively cut off the ability to be reimbursed for those registration fees.”
For homeschools, 25% of the Educational Freedom Account funds are used for athletics and extracurricular actions. With the proposed change to slash them solely, Barnes acknowledges the identical changes wouldn’t apply to public or non-public colleges.
“You can go to private school; all of your athletics will be paid for.”
She continues: “You know, it was very kind of offensive that somebody, sitting in an ivory tower somewhere is saying we’re going to restrict this and we’re not going to let you figure out how to best support your child.”
Despite the quick pushback from households, Steven Long, a retired science instructor, agrees with the ADE’s determination to chop athletic funding down from 25%.
“If you’re spending 25% on extracurricular and physical education, that does not leave a lot of other expensive subjects.”
“I felt were abuses of the system, and I know that the new rules have attempted to tighten that, but I don’t think that it has gone far enough,” he provides.
However, Long is proposing a compromise.
“I proposed that a maximum of 10% of the EFA funds to be allotted for the extracurricular, physical activities, educational field trips.”
These changes aren’t closing, however the Arkansas Department of Education continues to be welcoming the general public to submit their feedback till Tuesday, December sixteenth.
To ship public feedback to the ADE, ship them to [email protected].